Director Christopher Nolan will star in a completely retro film in the Toronto International Film Festival’s summer feature series, which begins ahead of its July 17 North American theatrical release.
The TIFF Lightbox Cinema series, titled “Christopher Nolan: Grand Designs,” will be shown from July 8th through August. There will be 20 special screenings of Nolan’s films exclusively on 35mm and 70mm film.
Nolan made his directorial debut in 1998 with the low-budget black-and-white noir Following, which debuted in the Toronto Festival’s Discovery section. The last time it returned to the festival was in September 2017, when it presented a special screening of Dunkirk in IMAX 70mm to commemorate IMAX’s 50th anniversary. Director Nolan is not expected to participate in the upcoming TIFF Summer Series Retro.
Retro “The Ringer” and Spotify’s “The Big Picture” will host a live podcast recording at TIFF Lightbox with Sean Fennessy and Amanda Dobbins, according to a statement.
The retrospective celebrating the self-taught Oscar-winning director will screen all 12 of Nolan’s films, some in 70mm format. Constituent works: “Memento” (2000), “Insomnia” (2002), “Batman Begins” (2005), “The Prestige” (2006), “The Dark Knight” (2008), “Inception” (2010), “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012), “Interstellar” (2014), “Dunkirk” ” (2017), “Tenet” (2020), and “Oppenheimer” (2023).
Additional Nolan retro programming at TIFF Lightbox will include a presentation of Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff, a film Nolan cites as “one of his favorites,” according to a statement. In a playful homage to the 2023 Summer 2023 “Babenheimer” phenomenon, a “quote-along” screening of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” is also scheduled just before the July 18 screening of “Oppenheimer.”
Separately, TIFF also announced that it will hold a large-scale screening series of Japanese animated films in November and December 2026, titled “Illustrated Universe: Visions in Animation,” supervised by renowned Japanese animator Masaaki Yuasa. The exact date of the event has not yet been determined.
“I am honored to curate this series for TIFF,” Masaaki, known for such notable works as “Mind Games,” “Rue Over the Wall,” and the Golden Globe-nominated “Inu King,” said in a statement. “As we begin to build our lineup, I’m excited to look back at the works that have fueled my own imagination since childhood and curate a series that highlights the artists who defined the genre and the incredible creators who continue to push the visual possibilities of anime today. We hope to deliver a program that will truly surprise and delight you.”
“The TIFF Lightbox Marquee series was envisioned to showcase big-name artists and ideas that capture and bring popular imagination to life,” said Anita Lee, TIFF’s chief programming officer.
“Christopher Nolan is one of the most influential voices in modern cinema today, where a new film is a cultural event. Meanwhile, animation continues to explode beyond the medium as an artistic force shaping global entertainment. These programs offer audiences of all ages a compelling perspective on the scale, creativity and innovation that define cinema today.”
